In today’s crowded digital landscape, building impactful creator partnerships isn’t just about securing a collaboration, it’s about fostering real engagement and trust.
So, what does it take for brands to stand out and form lasting connections with creators?
To answer this, we spoke with some of 2024’s top beauty influencers to get their insights on maximizing brand partnerships. Among them, dermatologist and content creator, Dr. Muneeb Shah, along with Alexis and Dr. Christina Androulakis of The Lipstick Lesbians, shared their expertise on what makes a brand-creator relationship truly successful.
Read on for their key insights and access the full list of 2024’s top beauty influencers here.
5 Ways To Build Impactful Creator Partnerships
#1 Invest in Long-Term, Meaningful Relationships
Short-term collaborations can create buzz, but brands that prioritize long-term creator relationships will unlock far greater value. As Dr. Shah (@doctorly) emphasizes, an influencer’s trust with their audience is one of a brand’s most powerful assets:
“Your audience doesn’t want to see a one-time product mention and never hear about it again. Consistency over time is what builds credibility.” — Dr. Muneeb Shah, Board Certified Dermatologist, DO, FAAD
Brands that invest in ongoing creator partnerships often see stronger engagement, deeper loyalty, and more consistent conversions over time. To do this effectively, marketers need visibility into which partnerships are truly delivering. Traackr’s Creator Lifecycle feature gives brands a unified view of their acquisition, retention, and churn—making it easy to identify which creators are organically loyal, which partnerships are paying off, and where there may be opportunities to re-engage high-performing talent.
How to Do It Right:
- Build advocacy by engaging creators who consistently post about your brand
- Grow sustainably by utilizing Traackr’s Creator Lifecycle feature
- Think beyond scheduled posts. Invite creators to test products before launch and offer feedback. Host behind-the-scenes or educational experiences that let them engage with your brand story in a more meaningful way. Or explore how you can support their passion projects—like sponsoring a new podcast, live event, or cause they care about!
#2 Listen To Your Creators
“A content creator knows their audience best. When a brand tailors a brief specifically to us, it tells us a lot about the partnership and makes the content more authentic.” – Alexis Androulakis, Award-Winning Beauty Product Developer & Educator
In an era where consumers can quickly spot an inauthentic sponsorship, it’s crucial to work with creators who genuinely believe in the product and the story they’re telling. More importantly, build a campaign brief and campaign that is tailored to their expertise.
Start with clear brand guidelines (the legal must-haves) but leave room for creators to infuse their unique tone, experiences, and creativity into the execution. When creators can lead with their strengths and put a little sparkle into the content, the results will resonate more deeply with their audience.
“When we first started gaining traction on social media, brands weren’t sure how to work with us because our content was so different. The ones that gave us the creative freedom to tell their story in our way ended up with the most impactful partnerships.” – Dr. Christina Basias Androulakis, Doctor of Digital Education & Technology
And the collaboration shouldn’t stop when the content goes live. Schedule a debrief after each campaign to reflect on the partnership. What worked? What could be improved next time? What new ideas were sparked during the process? These conversations build trust, strengthen future partnerships, and prevent misalignment down the line.
How to Do It Right:
- Provide guidelines but allow room for personal storytelling
- Personalization is key: Tailor briefs to the creators
- Trust that creators know what will resonate with their audience best
- Follow up post-campaign with a debrief to gather feedback and plan for the future.
#3 Engage Expert Voices
Today’s consumer is savvier than ever. They’re not just swayed by surface-level endorsements – they want substance. Trusted, knowledgeable experts who offer real insights are leading the conversation, helping decode formulations and explain why a product works, not just what to buy.
“We consider our channel to be about beauty literacy. Our goal is to democratize beauty so that consumers understand what works for them, rather than just listening to marketing.” – Dr. Christina Basias Androulakis, Doctor of Digital Education & Technology
For brands, this means choosing expert partners intentionally. Credentials matter, but so does clarity, authenticity, and the ability to make complex information accessible and engaging. Experts should be treated as educators, not just endorsers.
“Not every expert is the same. Brands should consider what the creator’s expertise actually is and align their content with that. A dermatologist shouldn’t be talking about glow effects; they should be talking about how a product works at a molecular level.” – Dr. Muneeb Shah, Board Certified Dermatologist, DO, FAAD
When done right, expert-led content doesn’t just build trust—it elevates your brand from a seller to a source of truth.
How to Do It Right:
#4 Make Data-Driven Decisions
In a time when marketing budgets are under greater scrutiny, data-driven influencer marketing is no longer optional – it is essential for maximizing ROI. Brands can no longer afford to rely on vanity metrics like likes and follower counts. Instead, they need meaningful, standardized measurement tools that reflect real impact.
One of the most effective tools available is VIT (Brand Vitality Score), a proprietary metric that quantifies the audience attention generated by creator content. VIT breaks performance into three core elements:
- Visibility: Effective reach and audience size.
- Impact: Engagement levels including likes, shares, and comments.
- Trust: Affinity and relevance of the content within the creator’s niche.
By leveraging VIT, brands can pinpoint which creator partnerships (and what piece of content) drive actual results and allocate resources more effectively. Rather than guessing which creators are performing best, brands can use data to make smarter, more informed decisions about campaign strategy and investment.
This kind of insight is not just valuable for brands. It is also vital for creators who want to grow strategically and position themselves as long-term partners.
“As a creator, think about your brand as a business. Know your analytics. Know your view rate. Is your content being seen? Are you reaching new people?” – Dr. Christina Basias Androulakis, Doctor of Digital Education & Technology
How to Do It Right:
#5 Create for Community, Not Algorithms
Keeping up with platform trends is important, but community always comes first. Prioritize creators that prioritize their own audience.
“You have to show up for your community. The algorithm has some demands of you, but your community has different ones—and that’s who we prioritize.” – Alexis Androulakis, Award-Winning Beauty Product Developer & Educator
Creators like Dr. Shah and The Lipstick Lesbians have built engaged followings not through hacks or trends, but by consistently creating content that educates, empowers, and listens. That value-first approach builds long-term trust and fuels real influence.
“When something new comes out, we get pinged all the time, just waiting for Alexis to review it. People want to know what she thinks because they trust her experience, expertise, and how she engages.” – Dr. Christina Basias Androulakis, Doctor of Digital Education & Technology
The strongest creators see their community as a two-way relationship—one built on shared dialogue, trust, and ongoing exchange.
How to Do It Right:
- Collaborate with creators who treat their audience as a relationship, not a transaction
- Develop partnerships around what an audience organically wants to see
- Actively engage with your audience via comments, shares and interactions
“Trust isn’t just about credentials; it’s built over time through consistency and accuracy. A single misaligned partnership can break that trust. Brands need to focus on how their collaborations impact long-term credibility.”– Dr. Muneeb Shah, Board Certified Dermatologist, DO, FAAD
The influencer space isn’t slowing down—it’s maturing. Brands that focus on trust, long-term relationships, genuine community engagement, and data-driven decision-making will be the ones that win in the long run.
Want to hear more from Dr. Shah, Alexis and Dr. Christina Androulakis? Watch the full video for more key takeaways!
